


See Through Me

by Phrenotobe



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: Confusing lesbian dreamscapes, F/F, FEH Book 3 spoilers, FEH book 2 spoilers, I hope to sequel this but I also wanted it OVER, Mention of Canonical Character Death, i will never write about snow AGAIN, the rite of frost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 02:21:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17235524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrenotobe/pseuds/Phrenotobe
Summary: Pale hair hangs over her brow; soft-looking, thick and close in colour to the artsy pallor of her skin above the collar. Shapes in her armour shift and move, too distant to recognize.“Who are you?” Fjorm says, the question rusty and peeling from her throat.





	See Through Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cowboy_Sneep_Dip](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip/gifts).



Fjorm hasn't felt warm in weeks. She's used to it by now. She drinks soup boiling straight from the toureen, works past the point she’d usually sweat. She plunges her hands into the snow to see if she can find a deeper cold outside her. She doesn't. 

The Rite of Frost is a slow ache that brings her slowly down into hell, and she can barely feel it on the way. She breathes in and she breathes out, and no fog comes from her lips when she does. She guides the way from the back of the group, at the point of a spear. She minimises contact with people so as not to scare them. 

Fjorm loves them, but avoids reaching out - she touches the hands of Alphonse and Sharena only through their gloves. She no longer appreciates the rime of frost on the edges of window sills, or water and cold hanging in long thin stakes from the roof of every evacuated home. When they set up camp in abandoned buildings in Nifl, she knows how to fasten up the windows and keep all the cold air out. She does it for them, not for her. 

The beauty of what she knows begins to blur into one white mass that never ends, never begins, and always was. Nifl, the beautiful, is now Nifl, the empty. Nifl, the twee and frozen. 

It's the detachment that scares her. 

It's difficult to sleep, and when Sharena notices the dark rings around her eyes all Fjorm can do is lie about nightmares she's not had. She stares at the ceiling, unable to rest and perchance to dream; unable to read, because the words make sense but they don't matter. 

When at last she drifts off for the first time in weeks, she feels almost betrayed. Within minutes, it feels like she's woken right back up again to the cold that never stops. The ice has frozen over the water jugs, and the air is still in the room. 

Out of her cluster of houses is the same ice and snow that has always been, but the air is warm like the approach of spring, and the trees aren't pale with snow anymore. There's nothing recognisable on the horizon, because of course her dreams wouldn't be that sweet, but she picks a tree and walks to it, used to the feel of her feet in the snows, that dusting of ice on the fringes of her boots that dries to slush, and down again to water. Her spear dips into the snow, leaving a print as she moves; a punctuated dot on every third step. 

She touches the rugged bark. There’s no moss indicating south, no chips or dips in the trunk to indicate it’s been touched by animals or disease. The trees, now - the trees that live in the grove she walks through aren't evergreen. they're tall and thin and jagged like somebody's razed all the leaves off, and didn't put them back. She’d call it Surtur’s hand if she could, but life shuffles in and groups in at the edges of her vision and Fjorm finds - not for the first time - little snow bunnies with black and white coats, their fur changing over from winter to spring. They move strangely, marionette-like, as do the distant elk, their noses dipping to the snow. 

Fjorm follows the rabbits, though she doesn't give chase, letting them guide her through the empty trees and empty sky. It's been a long time since royal dignity has allowed her to run or amble. Even now with propriety a thousand miles away, it still sticks to her. 

The rabbits flop and shuffle, scratching at the snow and revealing black dirt. There’s nothing growing there, no snowbells or grass or green shoots that brave winter for the thin sunlight. Up ahead there’s a glade that would perhaps be pretty if it were actually uncovered from the snow and ice that frosts it. As it is, it’s just mournful. Slabs of rock of varying heights and levels arrange themselves in the centre, grey and white, pale and dark. Fjorm can't tell if it's man-made or naturally occurring. A figure rests there on a stone laid out long and flat like a grave, furled in a torn and greying cloak, a book in their hands. 

Fjorm approaches. She can’t wait to find out if it’s a friend or if it’s a foe. She’s got so much power inside her that her fingertips and toes are numb, magic eating away at her heart, her lungs, her ability to feel when her friends or family reach out and touch her. Battles barely make her heart beat any more. 

The woman on the stone lifts her eyes to regard Fjorm. She’s covered over with red and black armor, a mask laid aside on the rock beside her. Fjorm feels her chest thump for the first time in days. The silence draws out, expectant. 

“Put down your weapon,” she says. Fjorm’s fingers uncurl, and her spear falls from her hand.  
It’s been hard to fight. It’s been hard the whole time. She’ll gladly give it up now, with nothing else to fight for. There’s nothing left to fight, in dreams. 

Fjorm exhales a long, mournful breath. Visible vapour curls out and wide. She’s so surprised to see it she puts hands up to touch it. The coils vanish, intangible into the air. Breathing works as it should. Cold seeps into her open mouth as her chest rises for the next inhale. 

“Surprised to breathe in the land of the Dead?” the woman asks. Her red eyes fix on Fjorm. Pale hair hangs over her brow; soft-looking, thick and close in colour to the artsy pallor of her skin above the collar. Shapes in her armour shift and move, too distant to recognize. 

“The land of the Dead?” Fjorm echoes. The home to rest after it all ends - it doesn’t look like this. Nifl talks of a palace, forever laden with food on the tables, soft sheets on the beds and warm breezes at the window, washing in an everlasting summer. It’s only right that she gets to refuse a frozen reality with no sister to greet her, taking her hands and leading her to sit with her parents. Being denied it feels like being defeated. 

“Yes, sweet echo,” she says, “You’re in death’s domain.” 

The woman has put aside her book. She rises to meet her; slowly, no grunt of effort or awkward angle as she moves, no fallible humanity to cause her stumble. Her arms spread open, welcoming as her head tilts. An invitation to come forward. 

Fjorm couldn’t stop or go back if she wanted to. Her hands curl and then open, every step taking an age. The closer she gets, the more the oddities show themselves. It’s possible to see the cloak through the red, and she moves like a machine. What Fjorm thought was armour only embraces and frames her, a shape underneath weighted with reflections and shadows. 

“Who are you?” Fjorm says, the question rusty and peeling from her throat.  
“I am Thrasir,” the woman replies as she receives her, caring, into the furled curve of her cloak, “Emperor of Embla. General of Hel.” 

Thrasir’s cloak feels like it swallows Fjorm down as it covers her. Fjorm feels the red shape of her body press against up, hard against her ribs. It feels like polished glass with an eerie kind of give to it, warm like a fire lives inside. Thrasir’s nails hook into Fjorm’s clothes, scrape over the soft curve of Fjorm’s cheek before she cups her jaw and tilts her head up to look her in the eyes. Thrasir is bone and stray bits of sinew; clumps of matter that haven’t rotted caught in the solid medium that draws her shape. Behind those red eyes is the gleam of power, undying. 

“A-am I dead?” Fjorm asks.  
“You should be,” Thrasir says, her tone loving. 

She takes Fjorm by the waist as though she weighs nothing, lifts her feet from the floor and tilts her backward. Fjorm’s back lands on the flat stone, still warmed from Thrasir’s time there. Heat, like she’s not felt in what feels like months, like years. The sudden stop makes her breath jolt out of her. 

Thrasir’s hands are firm and steady, hot where the leather of her glove ends. Fjorm knows those hands on her are just looking for evidence of her death, the whole reason she’s here; but being frozen from the inside doesn’t leave many marks to find. She closes her eyes, loses herself in the press of Thrasir’s hands, the warmth of them; the care she’s been needy to have for herself for a long time. Fjorm screams without voice and without air. It hurts to be so warm now, to be touched gently and held by somebody else. 

“I’m so sorry,” Thrasir says, dipping her head. Her forehead touches the fluff of Fjorm’s fringe, as Fjorm exhales and Thrasir inhales. Fjorm feels all of herself again. Her heart thuds and her chest feels like it’s about to burst open, and her mouth opens, chuffs as she tries to drag in more air. 

Thrasir’s hand presses down hard to the left of centre of Fjorm’s abdomen and lifts up as she rises; at first invisible on her palm, a thick, heavy drop of blood collects on the black metal of her glove, falls from the heel of her hand. 

“I- I see,” Fjorm says. She might be bleeding now, but she doesn’t feel it. She feels more alive than she ever has, like she’s been looking over her own shoulder the entire time. She doesn’t want- She doesn’t need to be cursed with power any more. 

“Go to sleep,” Thrasir whispers to her, holding her hand, palm to bloody palm. Her other hand strokes her face, a knuckle to brush the tense corners of Fjorm’s eyes.  
“Go to sleep. It’ll be mended.”  
Fjorm doesn’t want to, but she closes her eyes. The bright sky is red behind her eyelids. 

\--

When she opens her eyes again, it’s like she’s been dragged up from the floor. Her cheek presses to moulded metal, barely covered with a cloak and searingly cold. A girl with pale hair is holding her, sobbing loudly. It is ugly and hard. 

“...Sharena?” Fjorm whispers. The gold shines with reflections, pale from the snows.  
Sharena finds even more volume to bawl with, and she squeezes Fjorm tight against the fish scale of her tunic. It’s sharp and uncomfortable. She can tell there’s a hole in her tunic, her skin barely covered in something to keep mud out of the wound, and nothing stitched over it to prevent the Nifl breezes from creeping into her clothes.  
“Sharena,” Fjorm says, “Please.”

“I thought you were gone forever!” Sharena blubs indistinctly. At least, it’s what Fjorm thinks she said. “I was so worried! You’re my friend and I don’t know what I’d do if you got hurt!”  
Fjorm lets her cry it out, laying her head back on Sharena, finding her other shoulder. That one is softer, padded out with the meat of Sharena’s bicep as she curls up her arm around her shoulders.  
Her hand raises, touching Sharena’s cheek, to wipe away the wet before it cools. Her fingers have some feeling again, or perhaps it’s been the same all along and she didn’t care to find out. Sharena is warm, her face red with an upset flush. 

“I- I just wa-n wanted,” she manages, “I wanted to keep you s-uh safe, and I blew it!”  
“You don’t have to worry,” Fjorm says, lying out of love, “I’m not in danger now.”


End file.
